The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ask A Foolish Question, by Robert Sheckley

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ask a Foolish Question

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Title : Ask a Foolish Question

Author : Robert Sheckley

Release date : October 11, 2010 [eBook #33854]

Language : English

Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33854

Credits : Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASK A FOOLISH QUESTION ***

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced Science Fiction Stories 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

It's well established now that the way you put a question<br>often determines not only the answer you'll get, but the<br>type of answer possible. So ... a mechanical answerer,<br>geared to produce the ultimate revelations in reference to<br>anything you want to know, might have unsuspected<br>limitations.

Ask A Foolish Question

by ROBERT SHECKLEY

nswerer was built to last as long as was necessary—which was quite<br>long, as some races judge time, and not long at all, according to<br>others. But to Answerer, it was just long enough.

As to size, Answerer was large to some and small to others. He could<br>be viewed as complex, although some believed that he was really very<br>simple.

Answerer knew that he was as he should be. Above and beyond all else,<br>he was The Answerer. He Knew.

Of the race that built him, the less said the better. They also Knew,<br>and never said whether they found the knowledge pleasant.

They built Answerer as a service to less-sophisticated races, and<br>departed in a unique manner. Where they went only Answerer knows.

Because Answerer knows everything.

Upon his planet, circling his sun, Answerer sat. Duration continued,<br>long, as some judge duration, short as others judge it. But as it<br>should be, to Answerer.

Within him were the Answers. He knew the nature of things, and why<br>things are as they are, and what they are, and what it all means.

Answerer could answer anything, provided it was a legitimate question.<br>And he wanted to! He was eager to!

How else should an Answerer be?

What else should an Answerer do?

So he waited for creatures to come and ask.

"How do you feel, sir?" Morran asked, floating gently over to the old<br>man.

"Better," Lingman said, trying to smile. No-weight was a vast relief.<br>Even though Morran had expended an enormous amount of fuel, getting<br>into space under minimum acceleration, Lingman's feeble heart hadn't<br>liked it. Lingman's heart had balked and sulked, pounded angrily<br>against the brittle rib-case, hesitated and sped up. It seemed for a<br>time as though Lingman's heart was going to stop, out of sheer pique.

But no-weight was a vast relief, and the feeble heart was going again.

Morran had no such problems. His strong body was built for strain and<br>stress. He wouldn't experience them on this trip, not if he expected<br>old Lingman to live.

"I'm going to live," Lingman muttered, in answer to the unspoken<br>question. "Long enough to find out." Morran touched the controls, and<br>the ship slipped into sub-space like an eel into oil.

"We'll find out," Morran murmured. He helped the old man unstrap<br>himself. "We're going to find the Answerer!"

Lingman nodded at his young partner. They had been reassuring<br>themselves for years. Originally it had been Lingman's project. Then<br>Morran, graduating from Cal Tech, had joined him. Together they had<br>traced the rumors across the solar system. The legends of an ancient<br>humanoid race who had known the answer to all things, and who had<br>built Answerer and departed.

"Think of it," Morran said. "The answer to everything!" A physicist,<br>Morran had many questions to ask Answerer. The expanding universe; the<br>binding force of atomic nuclei; novae and supernovae; planetary<br>formation; red shift, relativity and a thousand others.

"Yes," Lingman said. He pulled himself to the vision plate and looked<br>out on the bleak prairie of the illusory sub-space. He was a biologist<br>and an old man. He had two questions.

What is life?

What is death?

fter a particularly-long period of hunting purple, Lek and his<br>friends gathered to talk. Purple always ran thin in the neighborhood<br>of multiple-cluster stars—why, no one knew—so talk was definitely in<br>order.

"Do you know," Lek said, "I think I'll hunt up this Answerer." Lek<br>spoke the Ollgrat language now, the language of imminent decision.

"Why?" Ilm asked him, in the Hvest tongue of light banter. "Why do you<br>want to...